I think The Floyd came up with the best Concept albums ever: "The Dark Side of the Moon", "Wish You Were Here". Their original member (forgot his name), his increasing lunacy and extreme alienation/isolation with fame/fortune found in between was the main source.

One concept album with great music from plenty of tracks but whacky, delirious, even insane lyrics is "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" (Genesis).

As for Sgt. Peppers, as far as I know it started out as a concept album - songs that would portray life and aspirations of two young lads )of course J & P) in Liverpool. But after "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields" were released as a single and were left off the album, the lads decided to record whatever song they came up with, thus loosening (or losing) the "concept album" concept. Still, there are tracks with that mindframe: A Day in the Life, When I'm sixty four, perhaps Good Morning Good Morning....

I would like to add Pyramid by the Alan Parsons Project. Great album. Jesus Christ Superstar is also great. The Mars Volta's Deloused in the Crematorium and Frances the Mule are great. Radiohead's OK Computer could be almost classed as a concept album. Dream Theater have put out some impressive works.

Trash? It's hard to think of any concept album in that kind of way - any set of songs with an underlying common theme is all right by me. I saw a review of Tommy on Amazon - the dude liked Pinball Wizard and I'm Free - but he believed everything else was derivative of other tunes on the album and were bland and boring as heck - I don't agree with that, I quite like Tommy myself.

kylestyle wrote:Trash? It's hard to think of any concept album in that kind of way - any set of songs with an underlying common theme is all right by me. I saw a review of Tommy on Amazon - the dude liked Pinball Wizard and I'm Free - but he believed everything else was derivative of other tunes on the album and were bland and boring as heck - I don't agree with that, I quite like Tommy myself.

I guess you're right - there may not ever be a so-labeled "trashy" concept album. I guess concept albums just don't fit into that. They may be not interesting, they may have a couple of fillers thrown in and so forth, but they represent a certain mindframe with some kind of concept to convey in songs (and sounds). Thus, that kid of work may not be your or my cup of tea, but it's not trash anyway, I guess. I stand corrected !

I don't know of any I dislike....Pepper is not a concept album as far as I'm concerned....the idea at first was to make a concept album but the idea fell at the waist side because of presure from EMI for a single...and as we all know Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields were taken from the concept!

So I guess I'll call one of my favorite albums of all time a trashy Concept album........only cause it's not concept album